A Host of Memories
by ncfan
Summary: Celeborn, history, and Celebrían.


I own nothing.

* * *

Oropher never came west over the Hithaeglir anymore. It was a combination of being too busy being king of the newly-christened Silvan folk, having no desire to deal with the Noldor, and quite frankly being of the belief that their people should never have crossed the Hithaeglir in the first place. "There is plenty of good, green land to be had here in Rhovanion. There are forests to shelter my people and farmland to grow crops. And don't try to feed me that line about reaching the Undying Lands. You weren't born until after Thingol was lost; you have no idea what it was like in those days."

Celeborn wondered, honestly, if things had been so much worse for their division of the Lindar before they became the Egladhrim, the forsaken wanderers who sought their vanished leader. He did not remember his life before Thingol reemerged as being much of a pleasant, comfortable time. But when Oropher started like this, there was no way to stop him. Celeborn had yet to find a solution that didn't involve letting his uncle-by-marriage trail off on his own.

Duileth rarely came west over the Hithaeglir either. She and Oropher were far more genuinely co-rulers than Thingol and Melian had been. Where Thingol had taken his wife's counsel in private (and hadn't even done that in his final years), Duileth had actual practical power, and all the time-consuming responsibilities that went with it. It wasn't so much that no one would have stood for the niece of Elu Thingol being relegated to the position of consort, so much as that no one could really fool themselves into believing that Duileth would ever be content as a consort, or believe that her talents wouldn't be wasted. When Oropher had something he needed to discuss with Gil-Galad, it was Duileth who went west as Eryn Galen's emissary, but apart from that, she rarely went west.

Thranduil still made the journey over the Hithaeglir sometimes. He still had friends in Eriador whom he liked to visit. He also made family calls upon the Nenuial settlement from time to time, and made one such family call in the summer, after Celebrían came of age. Thranduil came bearing gifts from his parents for Celebrían and news from them for Celeborn and Galadriel regarding trade agreements reached with Dorwinion and the local communities of the Fírimar.

One evening, they were in the sitting room of the house Celeborn shared with his family. Celebrían was sitting at a table, poring over work given to her by her mother. Thranduil peered over her shoulder, curious to see what had his cousin so engrossed, and Celeborn bit back a sigh when he saw Thranduil's pale eyebrows shoot up.

Thranduil undoubtedly knew some spoken Quenya from his time in the Havens of Sirion and on the Isle of Balar. Though the Ban on Quenya had not officially been rendered void until the beginning of the Second Age, when Elrond, Duileth and Celeborn had in turn refused the High Kingship over the Sindar (and had thus disqualified their descendants as well), there had been those in Sirion and on Balar who spoke the language openly. The Gondolindrim had so long dwelled in secrecy where they could speak Quenya without any risk to themselves that they refused to give it up when they were forced to leave their city. They _had_ spoken some strange amalgamation of Quenya and Mithrim Sindarin—only Idril and the high-ranking nobles of Gondolin had spoken pure Quenya—but the vocabulary of the mixed language was predominantly made up of Quenya or Quenya-rooted words.

Later, the Host of the West came to fight in the War of Wrath. That host was made up of Mínil and those Noldor who hadn't left their homes for Beleriand. For expediency's sake, it had been decided that the Ban did not apply to them, though most of the Mínil were so convinced of their own inherent superiority to the Úmanyar that it wouldn't have made any difference if the Sindar had decided that the Ban applied to them too.

Celeborn had not realized how many Sindarin influences and loanwords even the purest forms of Exilic Quenya had taken until he heard Quenya as spoken by the Noldor of the Undying Lands and the Mínil. The former sounded archaic and stilted enough, but Quenya, or rather _Quendya_ as spoken by the Mínil was another matter entirely. The few Mínil Celeborn had ever spoken to who had bothered to learn Sindarin—and their prince was not among them—described Noldorin Quenya as "lisping", Exilic Quenya as mutilated and mangled and possessed of entirely too many foreign influences, and were overall extremely proud of how well they had preserved their own dialect of Quendya. Celeborn sometimes wondered if the Mínil's Quendya had changed at all since the day it diverged enough from Common Eldarin to be counted as a different language.

Thranduil had to recognize some spoken Quenya, though probably not enough to carry on a conversation in it; he and his mother both held Elu Thingol's memory in too great esteem for that. Celeborn had _not _expected Thranduil to recognize written Quenya, but it occurred to him that nearly all of the written notices during the War of Wrath had been written in Quenya. He probably recognized at least a few words.

"I'd be careful, Celeborn," Thranduil muttered with a crooked half-smile, "lest Galadriel succeed in turning Celebrían into a Noldo."

Celebrían did not hear this, which was fortunate. From across the room, Galadriel_ did_ hear Thranduil, and she stared at him very hard, her lip beginning to curl.

"Celebrían _is_ part-Noldo, Thranduil," Celeborn said firmly, giving his cousin a sharp look, and mercifully, Thranduil dropped it.

Later that night, Celeborn sat on the stoop of his house, and stared pensively up at the stars.

He had not protested when Galadriel made it clear that she intended to teach Celebrían Quenya. Celeborn had not realized, not for nearly three hundred years, how being cut off from her language had hurt Galadriel, had made her grow even more insular and had isolated her even more than she had been when she first came to live in Doriath. He remembered the guilt he had felt when he realized that she counted the loss of Quenya from her life such a terrible loss indeed. For all that Galadriel rarely made an open display of her emotions and preferred instead to put up a veneer of calm collectedness, even to her family, he suspected that he would have been able to sense her disquiet, if he had just been looking for it.

Celeborn had never said a word to his uncle about the Ban, either after Thingol had made it official nor in the time when he was considering it. He wasn't sure, exactly, what good it would have done—Thingol never just "considered" _anything_, and he was so furious when he called the Ban on Quenya down on the Noldor's heads that even Melian had not been able to convince him that the Ban might not have been a good idea. If, in the days when Thingol still listened to his wife, even Melian could not convince him to turn aside from the path he was chosen, Celeborn did not see what he could have done.

The fact remained that Celeborn both knew that he could not have persuaded his uncle not to issue the Ban, and that he had not done anything to try to stop him, when he knew that one whom he loved would be affected by it. Celeborn could not change the past, and he knew that Galadriel bore him no grudge. She knew, as well as he did, that Thingol would not have listened to the counsel of his brother's grandson in this matter. Celeborn chose not to dwell on his silence.

Celeborn had not protested when Galadriel began to teach their daughter Quenya. The Ban was void. He knew how important it was to Galadriel that Celebrían not grow up ignorant of Noldorin culture, as she probably would have had she been born in Doriath. He knew how it distressed Galadriel, the idea that her child might grow to adulthood knowing nothing of the Noldor.

(Sometimes Celeborn wondered if that wasn't precisely the reason she'd always insisted that she wasn't ready to have children yet, all throughout the First Age. There were times when he could not help but feel a little bitter, imagining the children they could have had, imagining that a child of his, perhaps even Celebrían, could have known of the wonder of the Thousand Caves as something more than history given over to fantastical legend. Then, he would imagine a child of his, perhaps even Celebrían, dead at hands of the Naugrim or the Kinslayers in one of the sacks of Menegroth, and he was glad that Galadriel had insisted they wait.)

There was nothing wrong with the idea of Galadriel teaching Celebrían more about her own people. For all the trouble certain among the Exiles had caused, the Noldor had a history that was worth learning and appreciating. Celeborn could see the value in his daughter learning as much of the world as she could; it would not do for Celebrían to grow up ignorant just because she was born in a backwater settlement. She would be a leader among the Edhil. Leaders, good leaders, did not indulge in ignorance.

Some things, he wished for all the same.

He remembered his father using his shield like any other musical instrument, tapping a specially-carved wooden rod against it to produce music while his mother sang. Galadhon was the musician, Belwen the singer. Both were warriors, Galadhon of the sword and Belwen of the bow, both of them hiding strong, lean muscles under slim frames. Belwen's brown eyes shone in the darkness and pale golden hair, the marker of Mínil blood even if she claimed none of their superiority, made her stand out in the starlit dark of Ennor before the days of Anor and Ithil. Galadhon's grin could light up the darkest of dark places.

Galadhon and Duileth would bicker until Elmo would come to pull them apart, despairing of his headstrong children and lecturing them that being headstrong would not keep them alive in perilous places. Afterwards, Belwen would take her sister-in-law's side over her husband's just to laugh at Galadhon's indignant face. Elmo would stand watch over the camp long after everyone else had fallen asleep, just to be sure they were safe.

Celeborn had guided his brother's first steps, leaning over him to make sure that Galathil would not fall. Galathil learned to sing before he could walk, possessed of a sweet, piping, almost feminine singing voice long after he was grown and his voice had broken. Celeborn remembered how horribly sick he had been after his first battle with Orcs, his first bout against the blood-drinkers, when he couldn't keep food down and felt his face burning with shame, little Galathil had sat at his side and did not judge him, only stared at him with worried gray eyes and asked him when he thought he would be well.

Celeborn and Meresír had made protective charms together as children to give to their parents when they went into battle. He had been sad to learn that her family had disowned her, when she went to live with Orodreth, despite her parents not giving their blessing for the two of them to marry. He had been glad that his marriage to Galadriel could let him call Finduilas his niece.

Thínloth had taught Galathil how to mix draughts for her that would allow wounded soldiers to sleep so that she could perform surgery on them without the soldier experiencing intense pain. She would creep through the dense undergrowth of Taur-im-Duinath south of Doriath searching for the plants she needed to mix her elixirs and herbal concoctions. Celeborn had always admired how without fear she was of Orcs or other monsters or fell spirits, untrained as she was in the arts of war.

He remembered gawking at Lúthien's beauty when first he laid eyes on her, until Celeborn at last grew accustomed to his devastatingly lovely cousin and came to know her as above all else, a rather strange child. She was positively bursting with the same power of magic and song that her mother possessed, if in a rather more diluted form. When she sang, the birds formed a circle around her, watching with unnatural stillness and docility. She would trail after Celeborn and Meresír so much that Celeborn soon came to see her not just as a strange child, but a normal one too, and only then did he feel as though he was really kin to the Maia's child.

Celeborn first had the pleasure of hearing Daeron play the flute when the minstrel, wandering Beleriand in the company of Mablung the then-woodsman, came upon Elmo's camp and sang and played his flute for a while to earn his bread. He wondered, sometimes, if Daeron had survived in the wild after fleeing Doriath, for he was no woodsman himself and Mablung had been traveling with him expressly because Daeron was prone to getting himself into trouble and rather incapable of getting himself out of it.

Never had Celeborn quite been able to get over just how _strange_ Melian was. It wasn't the familiar, non-threatening kind of strangeness that Lúthien exhibited; Melian's strangeness was a thousand times more alien. Celeborn knew her to be wise, and benevolent. He knew her to be Doriath's greatest protector, in the form of the barriers she had woven to keep unwanted visitors out. But Celeborn had found Melian's Girdle to be just as unsettling as she was, and though he respected Melian, he was never entirely comfortable with her.

Nimloth his niece he had loved like his own daughter. He remembered her growing up to be fearless like her mother and as loyal as her father. She would climb every tall tree, swim every deep river. She married Dior when it was certain to nearly all (except Thingol, who refused to see it, and who could hold him at fault for that?) that he was mortal and Nimloth would have had to go on without him for thousands of years. She had known that, and still married him.

Dior had been brave, wonderful, stubborn, a young fool, but ultimately he had been too young and too inexperienced for everyone to have expected so much of him, and the Silmaril sank its hooks into him as surely as it had sunk its hooks into his grandfather. Celeborn could do nothing but grieve at the sequence of events that had ruined both Doriath and Dior.

Celeborn recalled how he had dandled tiny Elwing on his lap while Eluréd and Elurín played in his and Galadriel's chambers. He remembered how the twin princes would beg Galadriel for stories, beaming with shining eyes under their rumpled silver hair, and how Elwing would fall asleep on her aunt and uncle's bed without a hint of self-consciousness, her long, glossy black curls fanning out around her. Eluréd and Elurín disappeared into the snows; Elwing, into the sea. There were no bodies to bury, and Elwing had in body been a grown nís when she vanished, but they were children who passed out of the living world, and perhaps some could forgive the Kinslayers, but Celeborn did not think that he ever would.

This was his history. It was the Sindar's history, as Celeborn remembered it, a collection of stories and songs and plants and elixirs and charms and tales told around campfires. It was not something that could be preserved in history books or even ballads composed by musicians who had lived it as he had. There was no way such history could be preserved in anything so formal. History was too fragile to be captured in such mediums.

Celebrían was a child of the Second Age. She had naught but history and legends and ballads to connect her to the First Age, to the lives her parents had lived; even the lands where Celeborn and Galadriel had dwelled were lost, and they could never show them to her. Celebrían was a child of the Second Age. She was a child who grew up learning history, rather than living it.

Celeborn did not know how to teach her what he knew of his Sindar. He did not know how to teach her what it meant to be a Sinda. It meant more than what the histories would tell her. It meant more than what the histories _could_ tell her. While Galadriel was determined to raise her child to know what it meant to be a Noldo, Celeborn saw it no less important that Celebrían knew what it meant to be a Sinda, but how could he teach her?

The telling of tales was all that he had. It would be enough. By Elbereth, it would have to be.

* * *

**Hithaeglir**—Misty Mountains (Sindarin)  
**Rhovanion**—Wilderland (Sindarin)  
**Lindar**—the name by which many of the Teleri call themselves, meaning 'The Singers' (I have used it here because it refers to a time before the Sindar were the Sindar, and it was used as an old clan name, albeit in a different form) (singular: Linda) (adjectival form: Lindarin)  
**Egladhrim**—'the Forsaken', the name Thingol's people who stayed behind in Beleriand gave to themselves  
**Eryn Galen**—Greenwood the Great (Sindarin)  
**Fírimar**—'Mortals', a name for Men used among the Elves (Sindarin)  
**Mínil**—Vanyar (singular: Miniel) (Sindarin)  
**Úmanyar**—those Elves not of Aman  
**Quendya**—Vanyarin Quenya; the term is used to differentiate between the dialects of Vanyarin Quenya and Noldorin Quenya  
**Naugrim**—'The Stunted Folk', a term used by the Sindar amongst themselves for the Dwarves; given its meaning and that they did not use the name in front of the Dwarves, the term is likely pejorative (Sindarin)  
**Edhil**—Elves (singular: Edhel) (Sindarin)  
**Ennor**—Middle-Earth (Sindarin)  
**Anor**—the Sindarin name for the Sun  
**Ithil**—the Sindarin name for the Moon  
**Nís**—woman (plural: nissi)


End file.
